Common Language for Healthcare

While the VA and DoD have different systems in place today, the HDD can make them communicate effectively with each other without requiring entirely new systems.

The 3M HDD is essentially the United Nations translator of healthcare terminology. At base, it offers an extensive formal “vocabulary” that links or maps the standard codes and descriptions for all the major healthcare standard terminologies to an HDD Access concept. In addition, it can translate healthcare “dialects” — local terminologies — allowing facilities to continue accessing their own legacy information systems while enabling them to share data from those systems by cross-walking it to industry standards. By mapping disparate medical terms, HDD provides context and meaning to data, making it interoperable across otherwise incompatible systems.

All major healthcare standard terminologies are mapped into the commercial 3M HDD, including SNOMED CT, LOINC, RxNorm, ICD-9, and ICD-10. Pending approval from international standards development organizations, these standards will be included with HDD Access software for organizations and users who have appropriate authorization, as well as distributed to others for free through additional licensing mechanisms.

“This agreement will accelerate EHR adoption across the industry and help achieve a common language for healthcare,” said Hon Pak, MD, chief executive officer, Diversinet and former chief information officer, U.S. Army Medical Department. “We’ll be able to access meaningful data, analyze it and deliver it back to clinicians to help them make better decisions for their patients. The HDD makes this possible in ways no other product or service can.”

The HDD’s ability to incorporate local and legacy terminologies enhances the ability to analyze data by patient or population across multiple systems. As a result, it offers opportunities to mine otherwise inaccessible data, dramatically expand healthcare analytics and draw on large populations for research.